


i must have slipped between his teeth

by genesis_frog



Category: One Piece
Genre: Anger, Character Study, Dissociation, Dressrosa Arc, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Post-Dressrosa, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, be safe!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 15:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17062625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genesis_frog/pseuds/genesis_frog
Summary: Law feels empty.Law is empty because he doesn’t know how not to be angry, and he was angry for so, so long.





	i must have slipped between his teeth

Doflamingo falls, and Law feels empty.

He helps care for the wounded as much as possible, he rests and recovers, he sits and waits for Straw Hat to wake up - these are the things he is expected to do. He is a doctor, a patient, a co-conspirator, an ally; these are the tasks laid out for him. But Law is drained, and Law is tired. His limbs move on their own.

Doflamingo has fallen and the whole matter is done with. Corazon can lay to rest now, and Dressrosa has been freed from its cage. But Law doesn’t know what to do. He’d expected -- well, he didn’t know what he expected. Avenging Corazon wouldn’t bring him back. The whole thing feels somehow utterly anticlimactic. And now, Law’s alive, and that _stupid_ bullshit plan he’d concocted with Straw Hat just to convince him to help actually has to be _followed through with_ , and that means they’ll be facing down _Kaido_ next. He doesn’t have the energy to be angry at himself about this, but he will be within a week or so, he can tell.

Law doesn’t know what to do.

Law is empty because he doesn’t know how not to be angry, and he was angry for so, so long.

Anger has always occupied three chambers of his heart - a mother, a father, a sister gone too soon. And then there was Cora-san, the fourth, and he was gone, and the fury in Law consumed him. He metamorphosed -- a man possessed, scheming and calculating years ahead; his efforts landed him in the Worst Generation, but this was not ambition, this was a last will and testament.

He cuts out his heart, but the anger remains.

He is good at pretending to be cool, collected. He portrays the captain to care about his crew _(somewhere inside he does, but Law is selfish, selfish, selfish, and Law cannot care about them yet)_. He can play along with Straw Hat’s pace, but there’s an echo of a gunshot in his head, and so much white _(but is it snow or lead?)_.

He moves, but inside, Law is empty. This is how it’s always been: a shell of a boy, a wraith of a youth, death is just around the corner.

A new Law sits in the ruins of Dressrosa and thinks of nothing. He stares at the remnants of a wall, still, alive.

Thirteen years ago, Law strapped bombs to his chest; three days ago, Law opened his ribcage before Death itself, offered himself to a demon who filled his chest with bullets and broken bones. He saw no way then. _Law, this is the end of the road. This is the only way it can be._ He thought. _I am making this choice. I am choosing this death._ He thought. As if he ever had a choice.

There is a path ahead, Law knows this, but it is not one he can see, because this new Law has no choice - this is Straw Hat’s choice - so Law will find that he follows. Because it is the only way ahead, and Law has nothing left in him, he lets go.

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to another episode of "genesis frog projects onto one piece characters": law edition! i spent a lot of 2018 angry and then i suddenly felt drained and done with it all and figure law would Get That. except i cranked it up to 11 because it's, yknow. trafalgar law.
> 
> title from "the mariner's revenge song" by the decemberists


End file.
